


Pain

by halcyyonn



Category: Miraculous Ladybug
Genre: Angst, Gen, Peacock Miraculous
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-05-01
Updated: 2020-05-01
Packaged: 2021-03-01 23:01:35
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,102
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23945113
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/halcyyonn/pseuds/halcyyonn
Summary: Nathalie Sancouer had come too far using the peacock miraculous to let all of her hard work go to waste, even if it was destroying her.
Kudos: 7





	Pain

There were lots of reasons she continued to use the peacock miraculous, but every day that passed made her wish none of them existed. It was a mistake to ever transform, a mistake to ever become a supervillain. Everything had started to go downhill after that. From the coughing and fainting to the slow death, it was excruciating, knowing there was nothing she could do to stop this. 

Nathalie had done this to herself, knowing the consequences, but thinking everything would be fine in the end.

One of the few things she regretted in life was agreeing to use the miraculous at all. If she could go back in time and make a different choice, she would. If she had a chance to change how her life had happened, she would jump at the chance and grasp it with both hands. She would even accept the consequences of using the Ultimate Power, if she was ever close enough to combining the cat and ladybug miraculous. There was such a slim chance of that happening, but there was a chance, nonetheless. All options should be considered, especially in a situation as desperate as this.

Using a broken miraculous hurt. It sucked your soul out of your body, ate at every atom of your being, slowly tore you apart from the inside out. Yet, she continued to be Mayura, continued to suffer for a quest she didn’t benefit from. This was a pointless quest that would only hurt her, and the only things that could save her were alike to the very thing that was killing her. The miraculous were the cause of all these problems.

Why did she do this to herself? She was dying yet continued to use the peacock miraculous. She continued to suffer the consequences, continued to feel herself falling apart at the edges. And for what? For a job that was only temporary, a fight that she would never win? Once Emilie returned, she would become the holder of the miraculous again and Nathalie would fall back into her role as personal assistant. 

Another cough racked through her body, shaking her bones and turning the air in her lungs into knives. It scraped her throat, stabbed her lungs, punctured her body from the inside out. She was being destroyed, and there was nothing she could do to stop it. After the coughing had subsided, air wheezes in and out of Nathalie’s lungs, grating, painful. At least she hadn’t fainted this time. 

Fainting was always worse. Passing out unexpectedly with only a few seconds of warning was less than desirable, even after some of the symptoms and signs became more apparent. Often, she woke up in a different place, leaving her disoriented and confused for quite some time after. 

Nathalie didn’t even know how the miraculous had been damaged in the first place. All she knew was that it was probably the reason Emilie Agreste was kept in the basement, it had been damaged for at least a century, and it slowly leeched the life out of anyone who used it. The last fact was something she knew from personal experience. 

The only good thing to come out of this horrible experience was Gabriel working towards understanding the miraculous book, something that hadn’t been much of a priority until Nathalie became sick. After that, it had become almost as important of a task as creating akumas. Each attempt was a failure, but he persisted regardless. Luckily, decoding the ancient language written on the yellowing pages of the book was more successful. Gabriel had declared that he was close enough to understanding everything that very soon, he could begin repairing the miraculous. Nathalie could only hope that her illness would go away after the problem was solved because she didn’t want to live another day like this.

Sure, it had been her choice to use the miraculous in the first place, and Gabriel kept pushing her to give the miraculous up, but she couldn’t, not now. Whatever had pushed her to transform for the first time, despite knowing the risks, was keeping her trapped now, locked in a box where there was only one escape. She was stuck, and there was no way she wanted to end up in glass coffin underneath the mansion. 

Nathalie refused to let herself become another Emilie. She didn’t want to be the reason another person followed in her footsteps, persuaded by the promise of power and bringing change to the world, only to slowly deteriorate because of a simple brooch. After falling into that exact trap, Nathalie knew that she would be the last, whether it was because she took the brooch with her to the grave or because it was repaired, but she swore there would be no more people in the basement, frozen in time. Maybe that was part of the reason she still used the miraculous; she wanted to do something to protect people, even if she was causing damage to the city and creating fear in the people of Paris.

Whether she was dying or not, Nathalie had work she needed to finish. That was her job. She was a personal assistant with personal assistant duties to take care of. Supervillain had never been in her job description, and what she did while using the miraculous would not affect the rest of her life any more than it already had.

Nathalie turned in her chair, meaning to check her emails. Instead, she was greeted with the world spinning violently and a pounding in her head. The world blurred, becoming too bright but also too dark at the same time, and the room skyrocketed in temperature. She was about to faint, about to weaken and collapse, just like every other time this happened. 

Everything stopped spinning suddenly, almost giving Nathalie whiplash. She had only seconds to adjust before she felt herself weaken, her energy being drained from her body, before the world faded to black and her head fell forward, slamming into the keyboard in front of her. That was going to hurt when she woke up…

When Nathalie regained consciousness, she was still in her office, in the same position. No one had found her. Good. Adrien assumed she just worked too hard, but Gabriel knew what caused it. If he knew how frequently this happened, he would take the miraculous again, and she couldn’t let that happen. The miraculous was hers now. She had suffered through the consequences of using it, and she was in too deep for Gabriel to take everything away from her now.

She wouldn’t let him.


End file.
